QueryTrackerBlog

Monday, July 8, 2013

At the Scene: The Establishing Shot & Your Novel

Are you a visual writer?

As you sit and write your
novel, do you imagine the action unfolding as clearly as if you were watching a
movie?

That’s the kind of writer I
am. Images and words are inextricably joined, inseparable until The End. I tend
to visualize the action, the characters, the scenes, mulling them over and “watching”
them interact and unfold, then take mad notes when I “see” something that works.
The notes turn into manuscript pages and the pages into chapters.

Although novel-writing and
screenwriting are two completely different animals, I have picked up more than
one pointer from the film makers. By far, the most useful tip I’ve taken is the
use of the establishing shot.

In film, the establishing
shot is the opening shot that sets the scene—the location, the time, the spatial
relationship between characters, even the concept of the story. Traditionally,
this was accomplished through the use of a longshot or extreme longshot, although
today’s film makers often skip it in order to get right into the action to establish
a quicker pace.

Think about how many times we
are chided to start in media res—in the middle of things—so that our first
pages hook the reader. Those first 250 words are crucial if we want to catch
the attention of an agent or editor. We can’t let readers fall asleep on the
first page, can we?

However, that doesn’t mean
there is no longer a place for an “establishing shot” in our books. You don’t
need a lengthy scene set up to run as long as opening credits to an eighties
romantic comedy but you do need a way to anchor the reader in each scene in
order for them to become submerged in the story. Even in the case of the more
modern action opener, the reader gets a strong sense of who and where when you
establish the scene.

The Establishing Shot and
Your Novel

You may only need a few
sentences to establish each scene, using vivid imagery and well-crafted
showing. Place your characters in the scene, and let the dialog and action take
it from there. Establishing your scene at the very beginning allows you to set
the stage—and forget it. The story moves forward in the space you’ve created.

And believe me, you must
establish the scene before diving into action or dialog. Otherwise, it’s all
just too far out there for a reader to grasp. Have you ever read a section,
turning pages and having no clue who is speaking, where they are, or anything
of a truly grounding nature? Readers crave substance in a story. Settings are
part of that substance.

Consider fantasy literature,
with its extensive world-building. Because the writer may have to create a
setting from the ground up, the establishing shots can get pretty lengthy if
not handled properly. One of my favorite set of first lines does brilliant work
with its “establishing shot”:

“In a hole in
the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the
ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing
in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (1937)

Tolkien had a
lot of work ahead of him, what with the creation of Middle Earth and all. He
developed that hobbit-hole, then Hobbiton, then Middle Earth itself little by
little as the story unfolded. Pretty soon we were imagining pretty near what
Peter Jackson tossed up on the screen. But it was those first lines—that “establishing
shot”—that put us there at the very beginning.

(And I love the
back-loading he used—the placement of a powerful word at the very end of the
sentence. Comfort. It’s a personal word that calls up our own definitions, thereby
further investing ourselves in that hobbit-hole.)

Each subsequent scene you
write will need its own “establishing shot”, too, even if it’s not quite as
brilliant or elaborate as Tolkien’s. Time, location, participants, concept—every
scene needs to relay those elements or you risk losing the reader. Good use of “establishing
shots” will take your reader from one setting to another without letting them
get lost on the way.

Writing Exercise

Open your current manuscript
to the first page and read until you reach your “establishing shot”. How close
to the beginning is it? Even stories that begin with the full-out action hook need
establishing shots in order to anchor the action.

If you do not set the scene
up at the very beginning, you need to work thrice as hard to keep readers
engaged until you provide them with story legs to stand on. How can you set the
scene earlier?

The good news is that you may
be a champion “establishing shot” writer without ever having had to think about
it very hard. If that’s the case, your work will be to ensure that every scene
has its set-up and that you don’t waste pages doing it. Set up a scene in a country
mansion in Georgia with a lush establishing shot--then illustrate the details
of the party and the wedding cake and the jilted lover one by one as you move
the story along. You don’t have to mention the mansion in Georgia over and over
because it’s been established.

The plot moves unimpeded by unnecessary
words, while the reader always knows where the story is happening. By paying
attention to your “establishing shots” you can be sure to keep the reader engaged.
Not only will the setting be established but the reader’s involvement in the
story will be established, as well.

Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who, despite having a Time Turner under her couch and three different sonic screwdrivers in her purse, still encounters difficulty with time management. Visit Ash's blog at www.ash-krafton.blogspot.com for news on her urban fantasy series The Books of the Demimonde (Pink Narcissus Press); "Blood Rush (Demimonde #2)" was released May 2013. Additionally, her urban fantasy novella "Stranger at the Hell Gate" (The Wild Rose Press) will be available for full release on July 10, 2013.

2 comments:

I love thinking of a book in terms of film terms, and the establishing shot makes it really clear what an introductory scene should be. I often tend toward making a scene too static, spending too much time inside the main character's head. The second I think about what would be happening on screen, I end up with a much more workable opening.